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 In
terms of area, Europe is the world's second smallest
continent, with an area of 10,400,000 km²
(4,000,000 square miles), making it slightly larger
than Australia.
In
terms of population it is the third largest continent
after Asia and Africa. The population of Europe
in 2001 was estimated to be 666,498,000: roughly
one ninth of the world's population.
In
ancient Greek mythology, Europa was a Phoenician
princess who was abducted by a bull-shaped Zeus
and taken to the island of Crete, where she gave
birth to Minos. For Homer, Europa (Greek: ????p?)
was a mythological queen of Crete, not a geographical designation. Later Europa stood for mainland Greece
and by 500 BC its meaning was extended to lands
to the north.
The
term Europe is generally derived from Greek words
meaning broad (eurys) and face (ops). A minority,
however, see a Semitic origin, pointing to the
Semitic word ereb which means "sunset".
From a Middle Eastern viewpoint, the sun sets
over Europe: the lands to the west.
Europe has a long history of cultural and economic achievement,
starting as far back as the paleolithic. Origins
of Western democratic and individualistic culture
are often laid in Ancient Greece; the Roman Empire
divided the continent along the Rhine and Danube
for several centuries. Following the decline of
the Roman Empire, Europe entered a long period
of stasis, referred to by Renaissance thinkers
as the "Dark Ages" and by the Enlightenment
and modern historians, as the Middle Ages. During
this time isolated monastic communities in Ireland
and elsewhere carefully safeguarded and compiled
knowledge accumulated previously. The Renaissance
and the New Monarchs marked the start of a period
of discovery, exploration, and increase in scientific
knowledge. From the 15th century Portugal opened
the age of discoveries soon followed by Spain.
They were later joined by France, Belgium, the
Netherlands and Britain, in building large colonial
empires, with vast holdings in Africa, the Americas,
and Asia.
The
Industrial Revolution started in England in the
later 18th century, leading to much greater general
prosperity and a corresponding increase in population.
Many of the states in Europe took their present
form in the aftermath of World War I. After World
War II, and until the end of the Cold War, Europe
was divided into two major political and economic
blocks: Communist nations in Eastern Europe and
capitalistic countries in Western Europe. Around
1990 the Eastern bloc broke up.
Physical
features
In
terms of shape, Europe is a collection of connected
peninsulas. The two largest of these are "mainland"
Europe and Scandinavia to the north, divided from
each other by the Baltic Sea. Three smaller peninsulas-Iberia,
Italy and the Balkans-emerge from the southern
margin of the mainland into the Mediterranean
Sea, which separates Europe from Africa. Eastward,
mainland Europe widens much like the mouth of
a funnel, until the boundary with Asia is reached
at the Ural Mountains.
Land
relief in Europe shows great variation within
relatively small areas. The southern regions,
however, are more mountainous, while moving north
the terrain descends from the high Alps, Pyrenees
and Carpathian's, through hilly uplands, into broad,
low northern plains, which are vast in the east.
An arc of uplands also exists along the northwestern
seaboard, beginning in the western British Isles and continuing along the mountainous, fjord-cut
spine of Norway.
This
description is simplified. Sub-regions such as
Iberia and Italy contain their own complex features,
as does mainland Europe itself, where the relief
contains many plateaus, river valleys and basins
that complicate the general trend. Iceland and
the British Isles are special cases. The former
is a land unto itself in the northern ocean which
is counted as part of Europe, while the latter
are upland areas that were once joined to the
mainland until rising sea levels cut them off.
The
few generalizations that can be made about the
relief of Europe make it less than surprising that
the continent's many separate regions provided
homes for many separate nations throughout history.
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